Robust Golem standing in a wizard's lab by a table with glass tubes and a skull.
In Jewish folklore, a golem (גולם, sometimes, as in Yiddish, pronounced goilem) is an animated being created entirely from inanimate matter. In modern Hebrew the word golem literally means cocoon, but can also mean fool, silly, or even stupid. The name appears to derive from the word gelem (גלם), which means raw material.